So as we wait for the vote on our year end spending package, an #energytwitter nerd thread, prompted by yesterday's poll. What agency is responsible for US energy policy?
https://twitter.com/SeanCasten/status/1340730213886537728
1/ First an apology to my wife and her colleagues in the market research industry. This was a poorly constructed poll and results should be taken with a grain of salt.
2/ My own view (which @ronen_schatsky correctly sussed out) is "none". This was a trick question. I will stipulate that the lack of consensus among the Nerds of EnergyTwitter is directionally consistent with that view.
3/ The Dep't of Energy manages are nuclear stockpile and oversees R&D programs. FERC sets rates and market structures. Interior rules on extraction from federal land. CFTC oversees energy futures markets. And so on.
4/ All important functions - but no agency is responsible for coordinating and maintaining a coherent and unified US energy policy. If there is no desk where the buck stops, the buck does not stop.
5/ And for those who say the answer is Congress, I would point out that we have the same lack of coherent jurisdiction. At least a half dozen different committees have authority over some part of our energy system, but none of unilateral authority.
6/ The consequence is a bunch of agencies and agendas and an energy policy that is rife with conflict. Consider:
7/ We incentivize accelerated fossil fuel extraction from US land AND provide competing incentives for energy conservation.
8/ We incentivize domestic energy security AND incentivize the export of finite resources beyond our shores.
9/ We seek low energy prices for US consumers AND high energy revenue to domestic energy producers.
10/ We mandate the use of pollution control devices that increase CO2 emissions.
11/ We celebrate market efficiencies AND insist on cross-subsidies to ensure all Americans have access to energy without price fully reflecting their geography or time of use.
12/ I could go on, but you get the point. That's not because regulators are bad people. It's because there is no single entity responsible for coordinating US energy policy, and so the coordination doesn't get done.
13/ It's also because we still have historic policies that made sense when our economy depended on resource extraction that are no longer appropriate for our more mature economy.
14/ (I made the latter point nearly a decade ago, and it's still painfully true: grist.org/article/2011-0…)
15/ Curiously, there is some consensus that this is a problem for climate policy, and I'm delighted that President-elect Biden has proposed not only a "Climate Czar" but also that climate will be an animating driver of all Federal agencies
16/ That's great, but while there is a lot of overlap between energy policy and climate policy, they are not the same thing. We also need a coordinated energy policy.
17/ And that's a heck of an opportunity - in the absence of coordinated strategy, the creation of one is bound to lead to huge gains in regulatory efficiency and market certainty!
18/ I'll close with a couple questions, and perhaps teasers for future nerd threads. First, what would the central 'tent-posts' of a coherent US energy policy look like?
19/ And finally, what would it take to create a central Office of Energy Policy, coordinating all affected agencies? Share your thoughts on both in the comments. More thoughts to come. /fin
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
